“On June 5, 1981, my wife Kay was late into her second pregnancy, just weeks away from giving birth,” writes Rick Warren, the founder and pastor of California’s Saddleback Church and the author of The Purpose Driven Life.

“Absorbed in caring for our 2-year-old and preparing for a newborn, the farthest thing on our minds was news that day of a cluster of men in Los Angeles with a mysterious, devastating disease. But what began in Africa and was first observed in this small California group became an epidemic, then swelled to a pandemic – touching lives in every country on every continent.”